At around midday today workmen carrying out roadworks on a section of the A23 in Crawley uncovered what they thought was a wartime shell.

The bomb disposal team has now concluded that the one-and-a-half foot long piece of metal was not a wartime shell but a pipe.

The road was closed in both directions between the Fleming Way roundabout at Astral Towers and the Lowfield Heath roundabout but Police have now opened the road again.